The Castle Drogo butler ties a fly

Thread red, tail golden pheasant topping...
Perhaps he wasn't lonely and only
I felt lonely standing in his room
among the black and white of his gear,
the cut and dried folded emptiness
beside a boy's bed in a man's room
In another part of the castle lived a family,
among their wedding portraits
and family groups and captured rites
of possession and achievement
and in the cold passages of pantry and dairy
he could hear maids giggling.
Perhaps he wasn't lonely, but alone
was able to sense shadows between
cubes of granite and yew, the void
within dome and canopy. Still, he enjoyed
tying a fly, as his boss took pleasure
in being photographed with a dead fish.
In another corridor of his mind
he builds up a body on the shank,
golden olive seal fur… Two red palms
and hackles had the cook, who loved him.
But he dwelt on blackbird feathers,
dark as the eyes of a girl he dreamed of.
Margaret Morgan.